Improving spring weather and a new influx of Western weapons and equipment has the Ukraine conflict poised to enter a new phase.
Ukraine has reportedly been forced to alter plans for its coming counter-offensive because of the leak of highly sensitive US intelligence.
An unnamed official close to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that Kyiv had to reconsider some of its plans after the publication online of a trove of classified Pentagon documents. They did not elaborate.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence on the weekend teased the offensive with a video showing soldiers receiving Western arms and training. “What it takes most armies months to learn, our army has mastered in weeks,” it read, with the tagline “Spring Is Coming”.
Yevgeny Prighozin, head of the mercenary Wagner Group, warned Moscow not to underestimate the counter-attack, saying Kyiv was waiting only for the mud to dry before sending in between 200,000 and 400,000 men. His claims could not be verified.
The US documents leaked online included estimates of Russian and Ukrainian battlefield losses, details of surveillance operations covering the Zelenskyy administration as well as international allies and the Wagner Group.
The Pentagon said on Sunday that it was assessing the impact of the leak on national security. Two defence officials told Reuters that the Pentagon was now examining how widely intelligence was shared within the US government.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to Zaporizhzhia. Photo / AP
Some of the photographed documents would have been available to thousands of people with US and allied-government security clearances, one of the officials said.
The most pressing concern for Kyiv revealed in the documents is a shortage of air defence munitions that could render parts of the country defenceless against Russian missiles within weeks.
One of the documents, dated February 28, warns that the air defence systems protecting frontline troops would be “completely reduced” by May 23.
Stocks of missiles for Soviet-era S300 and Buk air defence systems, which together provide around 90 per cent of Ukraine’s protection against fighter jets and missiles, would run out by May 3 and April 13 respectively, the same document estimated.
‘We need a lot’
A spokesman for Ukraine’s air force on Monday did not deny reports that Kyiv faced critical shortages.
“Quantity is the issue,” Yuri Ignat said on Ukrainian public television.
“We need a lot of [Western-made] air defence systems to replace [Soviet-made] ones but I wouldn’t say how many,” he added.
Ukrainian soldiers ride atop an APC on the frontline in Bakhmut, Donetsk region. Photo / AP
Ignat said Kyiv hopes for a supply of US-made F-16 fighter jets and Britain’s Typhoons but conceded that “the wait is going to be very long”.
“We need jets here - and now.”
UK defence sources cast doubt on another claim in the leaked papers, suggesting that Moscow nearly shot down a British surveillance plane over the Black Sea.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was understood to be firmly standing by his account to MPs that a Russian fighter jet merely launched a missile “in the vicinity” of an RAF aircraft.
In October, Wallace told MPs that the “potentially dangerous engagement” had been attributed to a “technical malfunction” by his counterpart in Moscow.
The leaked documents indicated that the Pentagon classified the encounter as a “near shoot-down”.
However, defence sources warned against “sensationalist” reporting of the launch, insisting it was not “escalatory in any way”.
